Magazine

Synopsis: Lethal Indifference

A young woman working as a publicist for a family violence legal service in Melbourne visits the coroner's court to hear the inquest into the death of a woman around the same age as her. As witnesses testify and the coroner's findings mount up, she leads us through the case’s decisive turning points, drawing a portrait of how our institutions of justice can fail to protect vulnerable women.

Interweaved with the coroner's court proceedings are the narrator's own experiences. She reflects on how working in family violence can result in its own kind of vicarious trauma. She shares her own growing awareness of the signs of family violence that she sees around her every day. And points out the way in which such violence casts a shadow over the lives of all women.